But if I Had to Perish Twice
by Omnipotent Author
Summary: Five times Jack thought about his death and one time he didn't.


Jack had always had the occasional dream (nightmare) about his first memory, of the lake, of the dark and the cold and the fear. But it hadn't meant anything to him. As far as he knew, he was simply created in that lake.

But then he got his memories back and the dreams took on a whole new meaning.

He had drowned. He had fallen through the ice into the water and he had struggled and he had held his breath but the cold had made his limbs heavy and the cloak had twisted around him and he had been only human and the water had pierced his lungs like shard of ice

and he had died.

He hadn't let himself think about it at the time, more caught up in the happiness of the saving instead of the fear of the dying. And then he was busy fighting and protecting and then he was basking in the joy of being believed in and of having saved the day and then he had spent time with the other Guardians learning about his duties and getting to know them a little better.

And then he went off on his own again because they had their jobs and he was still unused to spending so much time with people who could see and talk to him after so long of being alone and then he was left with his thoughts.

He wondered how his family felt when they learned of his death. He wondered if his sister even made it back safely to tell them. He wondered if he was praised for saving her. He wondered if he was cursed for being foolish and going to a lake so far from the village. He wondered if they remembered him. He wondered how his sister grew up. He wondered if she would have believed in him.

And he dreamed of dying.

* * *

Jack never told anyone that he was, technically, dead. Tooth found out anyway.

"I was human as a child too," she told him, "I didn't grow my wings until I had lost all of my baby teeth." She laughed. "Even back then my life was connected to teeth!"

Jack tried to imagine her as a human child and failed miserably.

"The problem was, the adults of the human village I lived near wanted to capture me, put me on display," she said sadly. "The children protested, but adults so rarely listen to children."

Even when he was human Jack had not spent much time concerning himself with adult matters and had done so even less since his death, so he could not even begin to understand why anyone would want to do such a thing.

"In the end," she said quietly with tears in her eyes, "my parents died for my freedom."

Jack could not think of anything to say to comfort her, so he said nothing.

"Death is a very sad thing," she said, laying her hand on his, "but it is not always a bad thing."

When Jack woke up in the night, panting for air he had once been denied, he took comfort in her words. His death was not a bad death.

* * *

Jack asked North what he had done before becoming a Guardian.

"I was treasure hunter, adventurer," North admitted, almost sheepishly. "Sometimes got up to more trouble than you do!"

Jack laughed for a very long time. When he finally recovered he asked how North had become a Guardian.

"Very, very long story," he answered, a nostalgic look in his eyes. "My greatest adventure."

Jack asked, hesitantly, if he had been human.

"Still am, in a way," North chuckled, "magic and Guardian duties keep me going."

Jack confessed that he died without thinking about it.

"Do not let it trouble you," North told him with a sad look in his eye, patting him on the shoulder, "you are not dead now."

Jack could not think of the words to explain how thoughts of his death pulled at him, haunted him, woke him up in the middle of the night. North understood anyway.

"You have been given a second chance," North said as he swept Jack into a brief but tight hug, "and we are grateful for it."

When Jack looked up at the moon on another restless night, he promised himself and his sister that he would not let his second chance go to waste.

* * *

Jack checked in on Jamie and his friends every winter, so when his grandfather passed away only five days after New Year's, Jack was there.

"Why him?" Jamie sobbed into Jack's hoodie as Jack rubbed his back. "He wasn't sick or anything he, he just-"

Jack held Jamie tight as the boy cried harder.

"It's not fair," Jamie hiccupped, "it's not."

Jack thought about his own death. It had not been fair either. Everyone said that life wasn't fair. Jack sadly told Jamie that the same thing could be said about death.

"I miss him," Jamie whispered.

Jack stayed with Jamie for the rest of the winter and a little into spring. He hoped someone had done the same for his family after his death.

* * *

With a sudden, sharp crack, Jack was falling. The water seemed to embrace him and pull him in. He heard a scream that seemed to come from far away. He struggled but his body seemed to be made of stone. He tried to make his way towards the light but his hands kept scraping the ice. His lungs burned. The fear seemed even more overwhelming than the water. Involuntarily, he gasped and water filled his lungs, ice slipping through his veins. The world started going black and his struggles slowed. He choked, spluttered

and he was staring up at the night sky in Antarctica, Baby Tooth by his side, gasping.

He had died.

He had saved her.

He had trouble remembering how to breathe.

He had to move, had to stop Pitch, had to save the children.

All he could see was dark water turning darker.

He couldn't just lay here.

He felt like he was still sinking.

He had to do something, anything!

His mind kept catching on the fear.

It felt like an eternity had passed before he could drag himself from his memories the way he had not been able to drag himself from the lake and go save the children and his friends like he had not been able to save himself.

* * *

Jack stared at Pitch's offered hand.

He thought about the children, about their faces filled with happiness and their faces filled with fear. He thought about the Guardians who, in their own awkward way, asked him to join him and accepted his help.

He thought about the children who didn't believe in him. He thought about the Guardians who had always been believed in. He thought about being alone.

And he took Pitch's hand and never opened the tube of teeth from when he was human.


End file.
